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Kshana Kshanam

1991 158’ col/scope Telugu d/st/sc Ram Gopal Varma pc NRP Films p K.L. Narayana, Y. Lakshmana Choudhury dial Satyanand lyr Seetharama Sastry, Vennelakanti c S. Gopal Reddy m M.M. Keeravani lp Venkatesh, Sridevi, Paresh Rawal, Rami Reddy, Brahmanandam, Krishna Rao

When the sexy working woman Satya (Sridevi) happens upon a clue to some hidden loot, she is targeted by a gang led by the villain Nayar (Rawal). Teaming up with a petty crook Chandu (Venkatesh), the pair are chased through the film by both the criminals and the police. This megabudget chase film opens with a suspenseful bank raid, moves to surreal forest scenes as the couple rough it beside a camp fire, and climaxes as the hero fights the gangsters atop a moving train. Director Varma shows himself able to assimilate recent Hollywood styles influenced by TV advertising and music clips (cf. John Badham’s Bird on a Wire, 1990). Most of the songs are inserted with no connection whatever to the plot, unusual even in a tradition noted for the autonomy of its song picturisations. Film critic Rajeev Velicheti (1992) used the film to identify a recent trend of consumerist cinema in AP calibrated on the linguistic-regional attitudes of a Hyderabad-based middle-class. The film was dubbed in Hindi as Hairaan.

Film